Ireland.The
Brophy sept had its roots in the ancient kingdom
of Osraige in Leinster.In the Brophy early history, this
sept were
driven north by the Anglo-Norman invasion in the late 12th century from
Kilkenny to the territory of Upper Ossory in present-day Laois.They made their family seat at
Ballybrophy.The territory was held by
the Fitzpatricks who had ingratiated themselves with the English during
the
16th century but then had their lands forfeited after the Jacobite
defeat in
1690.

In
Griffith's mid-19th century Valuation of Ireland, the
two leading counties of Brophy households
were Kilkenny and Laois.Significant
numbers also existed in Dublin and Tipperary.

One Brophy family traces itself
back to the Roscrea area in Tipperary around the time of the Great
Famine.Some of these Brophys departed for
England or
America.Catherine Brophy was a young
orphan girl who was sent to Australia in 1856.Dublin descendants have included the Brophy Brothers Ceili Band.

England.John Brophy came to Liverpool from Ireland
with his wife Agnes sometime in the 1890ís.He worked on the docks and was later an earthenware dealer.His son John escaped his dull adolescence in
that city in 1914.

ďAt
the age of fourteen (lying about his age), he managed to
join the British army at the outbreak of war.His lie was never detected and he went on to serve four years in
the
infantry.In 1919 he was just eighteen
when he was demobilized and walked out with a limp brought about by
trench
foot.Ē

He became a writer.He was the
author of some forty books, many of which were based on his experiences
during
the war.His daughter Brigid Brophy was
an even more well-known writer and social critic.

William Brophy, a plasterer, and his wife
Mary from Tipperary came to England in 1887 and eventually settled in
Liverpool.Their son Francis Brophy enlisted in the
Great
War, but did not survive it.

America.
Brophy arrivals in America
during the 19th century included:

Michael
Brophy from Carlow who arrived in New
York on the Dublin Packet in 1816.

James
Brophy from Kilkenny who came on the Caledonia
in 1843 and made his home in Wilmington, Delaware

Thomas
Brophy from Dublin who
arrived a year later and worked for the New York Central Railroad
Company for
close on fifty years.

Mathew
Brophy who arrived from Ireland on the Albert Gallatin
in 1850 and settled in
Davenport, Iowa

Patrick
Brophy from Carlow who came in 1877 and moved out to
Butte, Montana four years later.There
he started a successful wholesale and retail grocery business.

James
Brophy from
Laios who came to Iowa in 1883 before later moving to Colorado where he
made
his home in Yuma county.

and,
the best known, John Brophy from a family of
miners in Lancashire, who came with his family as a young boy to the
Pennsylvania coal mines in 1892.He
started work there at the age of eleven and rose through the union
ranks to run
as President of the United Mine Workers of America by 1926.

Arizona.Michael Brophy from Kilkenny had taken part
in the Irish uprising of 1798 and been executed by the British.His descendants, however, ventured into the
American southwest.The first record of
them there was in 1851 when Francis Brophy, who had enlisted in the US
Army in
Mexico, died at Cebolleta in New Mexico.Other Brophys followed from the 1860ís onward.Hank Brophy was a member of the John Kinney
cattle rustling gang in southern New Mexico in the 1870ís.

William Brophy
arrived in Arizona in 1881 and joined his brother James at a ranch in
the
Sulfur Springs Valley.He was later
successfully involved in a number of mining and banking ventures in
Arizona
before departing for France in 1917 to serve with the Red Cross during
World
War One.After his death in 1922 his
widow Ellen founded Brophy College Preparatory, a Jesuit
high school, in Phoenix.

Williamís son Frank was a banker and rancher who
acquired in 1935 the Babacomari
ranch
in southern Arizona where he bred and trained racehorses and raised
Hereford
cattle.

Canada.Brophy is a well-known name in
the
Maritime provinces of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia.William Brophy was a local Newfoundland Assembly
politician in the 1920ís.Brophy
Lane
and Brophy Place in
St. John's were named in
his honor.More recently, Father Ed
Brophy from St. Johnís has become known for his short-story writing.

Much
earlier, around 1818, there were Brophys attached to the Newfoundland
Regiment.Thomas Brophy later moved to
Halifax, Nova Scotia.John Brophy, the well-known
ice hockey
coach, was born in Halifax in 1933.

Australia and New
Zealand.Some
early Brophys were
forcibly transported to Australia:

William
Brophy was convicted for pig stealing
in Limerick in 1828 and transported to Australia on the Governor
Ready the following year.He received
his certificate of pardon in 1835, but died in
Sydney in
1844.

while
Hugh Brophy, a leading Fenian agitator in Dublin, was transported
for political reasons to Western Australia in 1868, the last year for
convict
shipment.Brophy was pardoned the
following year.But he never returned to
Ireland and died in Melbourne in 1919 at the grand age of 90 years.

Hearing
about the gold boom, Kyran Brophy left the
family farm in Laois and departed for Melbourne on the Constantine
in 1859. He was unsuccessful at the Ballarat
goldfields, but more successful two years later at the Otago goldfields
in New
Zealand where his party cleared £800 per man in twelve months.He settled to farm in Pleasant Valley, South
Canterbury.Daniel Brophy from
Kilkenny also made it to the Ballarat goldfields, in his case in 1855,
and he
stayed.He turned out to be a shrewd
investor in local mining ventures and soon prospered.As a sincere Catholic and Irish nationalist,
Brophy won high repute among his fellow Catholics.In 1868 he played a leading part in raising a
fund to relieve the Irish political prisoners sent to Western Australia.

Select Brophy Miscellany

If you would like to read more, click on the miscellany page for
further stories and accounts:

Select Brophy NamesWilliam
O'Brothe
was appointed Prior of the Augustinian monastery of Aghamacart in
Ireland in 1481.John Brophy was
a leading American trade unionist, first
with the United Mine Workers of America in the 1920ís and then with the
CIO in
the 1930ís and 1940ís.
John Brophy was a well-known Canadian
ice hockey player and coach, supposedly the inspiration for the Paul
Newman ice
hockey movie Slap Shot in 1977.
Brigid Brophy
was a 20th century British novelist, critic and campaigner for social
reforms.Select Brophys Today

2,000 in the UK (most numerous
in Lancashire)

3,000 in America (most numerous in New York)

6,000 elsewhere (most numerous in Ireland)

PS. You might want
to check out the surnames page on this
website. It covers surname genealogy in this and companion
websites for more than 800 surnames.